"02 - The Wyvern's Spur - Jeff Grubb & Kate Novak [4.0]" - читать интересную книгу автора (Finder's Stone)

"Of course he didn't," Aunt Dorath snapped. "Giogi could no more joust with a
dragon than he could match his own stockings. Enough of this nonsense. Drone,
it's time you explained to all of us what happened to the spur."
Uncle Drone sighed a deep sigh, like a bellows letting out all its air. When he
spoke, it was in a measured, professorial voice, his tone as dry as the ancient
paper scrolls he kept in his lab. "Last night," he began, "an hour before dawn,
someone got into the family crypt, where the wyvern's spur has been stored for
years. Awakened by a magical alarm, I immediately attempted to scry into the
crypt, but a powerful darkness obscured my vision. I teleported to the graveyard
and found both the mausoleum door and the crypt door within locked. There was no
sign that anyone had broken in or out. All the magical wards I had placed to
keep spell-casters from by-passing the locks were intact. However, both the spur
and its thief were gone."
"Why was the spur kept in the family crypt?" Gaylyn asked. "Wouldn't it have
been easier to guard it in the castle?"
"The guardian lives in the crypt," Frefford explained softly to his wife.
"What's 'the guardian?" she asked.
"The spirit of a powerful monster, which will slay any being in the crypt that
is not a Wyvernspur by blood or marriage," Aunt Dorath said.
"So it had to be a Wyvernspur who stole the spur," Gaylyn reasoned.
"One of us," agreed Uncle Drone, pausing for a moment to let the thought sink
in. Then he added, "But probably a long-lost relative. We've never been able to
discover any before, but that doesn't mean there aren't any."
"Why steal the spur? What good is it to anyone?" Giogi asked.
"It's said to have powers beyond that of ensuring the continuance of the family
line," replied the wizard.
"I never heard about that," Giogi protested. "What sort of powers?"
Uncle Drone shrugged. "It isn't in any of the family history books."
"What makes you think it was a long-lost relative?" Julia asked. "Why not one of
us?"
"Well, firstly," Drone explained, "I was able to ascertain through magical means
that none of the keys entrusted to the keeping of Frefford, Steele, and
GiogioniЧ" Uncle Drone waved an arm at each of the men in turnЧ "were used to
open the crypt."
"What about your own key?" Aunt Dorath interrupted. "Are you certain you haven't
mislaid it somewhere?" Her emphasis suggested the unspoken word "again."
In reply, Uncle Drone held up a large silver key hanging from a chain about his
neck. "As everyone here but Gaylyn already knows," the wizard continued,
"besides the mausoleum entrance, the only other entrance to the crypt is from
the catacombs below, and the only other way into the catacombs is from a secret
magical door outside the graveyard."
"But you told us that that secret door only opens every fifty years," Steele
snapped peevishly, "on the first of Tarsakh. That's still more than a ride
away."
"Twelve days. That's a ride and two days to spare," Gaylyn corrected.
Steele scowled at the woman's exactness.
"Well, I seem to have miscalculated," Drone said. "Apparently the door opens
after three hundred sixty-five days multiplied by fifty. In other words every
eighteen thousand two hundred fiftieth day. The family records weren't so
precise and rounded the interval off to a half-century."